Yes, I know it’s rather late to extend this welcome to the new MBA class. The Induction programme started today and I’ve very much enjoyed meeting all the new students. We had an excellent talk by Hilary Sears this morning, very inspiring I must say, and we’ve only just finished the buffet after the “Kissing with Confidence” event, so it’s been a long day. A day that I’ve enjoyed certainly. Ohhh and before you get any wrong ideas, Kissing with Confidence is networking training with Russell Wardrop and his team.

So now I’m a tad tired and want to go home and see it I’ve still got a roof – remnants of hurricane Katia has battered Scotland today. Time to go out and get the full blast of the elements.

Yes, despite eight years of involvement in the Edinburgh MBA I still can’t see one simple answer to this. Part of the explanation is of course that it is subjective. It depends on your past education, your career so far, your future career, and what is the added benefit that you want (specialisation, international experience, etc). And some just want a bigger salary. Although linked to the above another part of the answer is that it also depends on the current state of affairs in the world – what is the “deal-breaker” for you to secure your future at the exact moment in time when you consider undertaking an MBA.

I’ve seen plenty of surveys from our various collaboration partners but the problem with these is of course that in surveys you have to keep it to relatively short questions.

Now.

Over to you.

What do you think?

If you can choose only one thing then what is the most important thing/outcome that the MBA experience should give you?

Feel free to comment.

And remember only one thing.

This is, of course, because the new MBA class will be here in just over a week. I’ve met a few of them already and it looks to be a great bunch of people. We had our first Early Bird reception Tuesday and we’ll have another one on Thursday next week. A lot of information is begin exchanged in the Google group for the incoming class so they are all getting up to speed. I can’t wait to meet them all.

At the same time my writing is tinged with sadness as the 2010-11 FT MBA class submitted their final piece of work yesterday, well most of them as some have chosen to take internships and so have delayed their Capstone projects. The MBA IB class of 2010-11 are still working away so I’ll get to keep them for a little while longer.

We have made some exciting changes to the first semester of our MBA programme, the one that has traditionally been the most stressful so while it will still be a lot of hard work I expect it will be slightly easier. The one-year MBA will always be more intense than the two-year MBA – for obvious reason as we all have to achieve the same.

Around us the Festival is packing their bags until next year. It is actually rather spectacular the change from one day to another. On the last day the Festival (or festivals I should write as more are taking place at the same time) the streets are packed with people, thronging to get to shows, and the next day they are all but deserted. But Edinburgh is a party city so come December Winter Wonderland will be here so more exciting stuff happening.